A Death in Vienna

outsiders meddling in their affairs.”
    “You’re not gloating, are you?”
    “Of course not,” Radek said. “I’m only sorry I didn’t drive a harder bargain at Treblinka. Perhaps I shouldn’t have agreed so easily. I’m not so certain Peter’s campaign would have been derailed by the revelations about my past.”
    “There are some things that are politically unpalatable, even in a country like Austria.”
    “You underestimate us, Allon.”
    Gabriel permitted a silence to fall between them. He was already beginning to regret his decision to come. “Moshe Rivlin said you wanted to see me,” he said dismissively. “I don’t have much time.”
    Radek sat a little straighter in his chair. “I was wondering whether you might do me the professional courtesy of answering a couple of questions.”
    “That depends on the questions. You and I are in different professions, Radek.”
    “Yes,” Radek said. “I was an agent of American intelligence, and you are an assassin.”
    Gabriel stood to leave. Radek put up a hand. “Wait,” he said. “Sit down. Please.”
    Gabriel returned to his seat.
    “The man who telephoned my house the night of the kidnapping—”
    “You mean your arrest?”
    Radek dipped his head. “All right, myarrest. I assume he was an imposter?”
    Gabriel nodded.
    “He was very good. How did he manage to impersonate Kruz so well?”
    “You don’t expect me to answer that, do you, Radek?” Gabriel looked at his watch. “I hope you didn’t bring me all the way to Jaffa to ask me one question.”
    “No,” Radek said. “There is one other thing I’d like to know. When we were at Treblinka, you mentioned that I had taken part in the evacuation of prisoners from Birkenau.”
    Gabriel interrupted him. “Can we please, at long last, drop the euphemisms, Radek? It wasn’t anevacuation. It was a death march.”
    Radek was silent for a moment. “You also mentioned that I personally killed some of the prisoners.”
    “I know you murdered at least two girls,” Gabriel said. “I’m sure there were more.”
    Radek closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “Therewere more,” he said distantly. “Manymore. I remember that day as though it were last week. I had known the end was coming for some time, but seeing that line of prisoners marching toward the Reich . . . I knew then that it was Götterdämmerung. It was truly the Twilight of the Gods.”
    “And so you started killing them?”
    He nodded again. “They had entrusted me with the task of protecting their terrible secret, and then they let several thousand witnesses walk out of Birkenau alive. I’m sure you can imagine how I felt.”
    “No,” Gabriel said truthfully. “I can’t begin to imagine how you felt.”
    “There was a girl,” Radek said. “I remember asking her what she would say to her children, about the war. She answered that she would tell them the truth. I ordered her to lie. She refused. I killed two other girls and still she defied me. For some reason, I let her walk away. I stopped killing the prisoners after that. I knew after looking into her eyes that it was pointless.”
    Gabriel looked down at his hands, refusing to rise to Radek’s bait.
    “I assume this woman was your witness?” Radek asked.
    “Yes, she was.”
    “It’s funny,” Radek said, “but she has your eyes.”
    Gabriel looked up. He hesitated, then said, “So they tell me.”
    “She’s your mother?”
    Another hesitation, then the truth.
    “I would tell you that I’m sorry,” Radek said, “but I know my apology would mean nothing to you.”
    “You’re right,” Gabriel said. “Don’t say it.”
    “So it was for her that you did this?”
    “No,” said Gabriel. “It was for all of them.”
    The door opened. The warder stepped into the room and announced that it was time to leave for Yad Vashem. Radek rose slowly to his feet and held out his hands. His eyes remained fastened to Gabriel’s face as the cuffs were ratcheted around his wrists. Gabriel accompanied him as far as the entrance, then watched him make his way through the fenced-in passage, into the back of a waiting van. He had seen enough. Now he wanted only to forget.
    AFTER LEAVING ABU KABIR,Gabriel drove up to Safed to see Tziona. They ate lunch in a small kebab café in the Artists’ Quarter. She tried to engage him in conversation about the Radek affair, but Gabriel, only two hours removed from the murderer’s presence, was in no mood to discuss him